Legally, copyright infringment is not theft, it is copyright infringment. However, this is not a legal discussion but an ethical or even moral one. I believe copyright infringement is not theft - that is *not* saying it's OK, just that they are two seperate ills.
If person A was never going to buy person B's item but duplicates it (ie it wasn't worth $30 to A, but it was worth 5 minutes). Then person B didn't lose an item or a sale. This differs from theft where person B loses the item as well.
Yes, in the real world it's more complicated as person A gives a copy to his mate etc and person B might lose a sale, but there is still a large distinction.
I think you misunderstand why we think what they are doing is stupid. I don't think it's stupid because of our 'right to evaluate' or whatever, I think it's stupid because:
- It will fail - It will cost them money - It will cost us delays in getting the HDTV - It will fail
It makes you think they are ignorant suits who actually *believe* someone with a bridge^H^H^H^H^Hcopy protection scheme to sell.
It's isn't possible to create a perfect copy from a CD as mp3 is a lossy format. Not to mention that many of the mp3s 'out there' were copied by recording the output of the CDROM (ie digitized from an analogue source) rather than lifted digitally.
I have an MP3 lifted from vinyle, if I could get it on CD I would. MP3's are lifted from the highest quality medium that is conviently available - CD's being digital is incidental, they are used because they are high quality and easily available.
Analogue TV is no different, if someone has a TNT Ultra (or one of the other popular cards) they can copy a TV broadcast, video, Laserdisc or <gasp>DVD, store it lossy at about 600k a second, then duplicate it indefinitely with no aditional quality loss. Just like MP3.
I thought along similar lines as you, as I believe people should be able to decide what they (and their kids) see. But while well intentioned it will actually achieve something quite different to what you imagine.
Read all of "how I saw the light" to see why something so honourable will become something so bad.
I think there are some solutions, but they are not simple (and they are not yet implemented in IE or NS)
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If person A was never going to buy person B's item but duplicates it (ie it wasn't worth $30 to A, but it was worth 5 minutes). Then person B didn't lose an item or a sale. This differs from theft where person B loses the item as well.
Yes, in the real world it's more complicated as person A gives a copy to his mate etc and person B might lose a sale, but there is still a large distinction.
I think you misunderstand why we think what they are doing is stupid. I don't think it's stupid because of our 'right to evaluate' or whatever, I think it's stupid because:
- It will fail
- It will cost them money
- It will cost us delays in getting the HDTV
- It will fail
It makes you think they are ignorant suits who actually *believe* someone with a bridge^H^H^H^H^Hcopy protection scheme to sell.
hehe, I'll sell you one.
I have an MP3 lifted from vinyle, if I could get it on CD I would. MP3's are lifted from the highest quality medium that is conviently available - CD's being digital is incidental, they are used because they are high quality and easily available.
Analogue TV is no different, if someone has a TNT Ultra (or one of the other popular cards) they can copy a TV broadcast, video, Laserdisc or <gasp>DVD, store it lossy at about 600k a second, then duplicate it indefinitely with no aditional quality loss. Just like MP3.
I thought along similar lines as you, as I believe people should be able to decide what they (and their kids) see. But while well intentioned it will actually achieve something quite different to what you imagine.
Read all of "how I saw the light" to see why something so honourable will become something so bad.
I think there are some solutions, but they are not simple (and they are not yet implemented in IE or NS)